Avoid Creating Vulnerable Passwords

In previous years, when the annual list of “worst passwords” for the year were compiled, the word “password” itself ranked at the top of the list.

However, according to SplashData, “password” was replaced in the year 2013 by none other than the not so clever “123456”.

This was largely due to the fact that there was a security breach in October of 2013 by Adobe, which affected the password information of over 48 million users.

This just goes to show us that passwords need to be easy to remember, but not so obvious that you could fall victim to scammers by making them way too easy to guess.

avoid creating vulnerable passwords

Avoid Common Password Mistakes

To help protect your accounts that are password protected, make your password something that is relevant to you, but that others might not consider. Also, stay away from the obvious choices of making the password relate to the account, for example, making your credit card password “creditcard”.

Avoid trying too clever by replacing letters with look alike numbers such as using a ‘3’ for the letter ‘E’. These are all common mistakes many people make that are widely known to hackers and scammers and they can seek out vulnerable passwords easily.

Make Your Password More Complex

You can make your password more complex, but still easy for you to remember, by taking advantage of websites that require the use of both letters and numbers. Create your new password by combining a word or phrase, plus a number that has significance to you.

Some websites are now even requiring users to use both upper and lower case letters within their passwords, plus at least one number. This makes sure your password is very secure, and it’s important to create strong passwords because less secure passwords are the first to fall victim to scammers and hackers.

It is also recommended that phrases be used when creating passwords, with either spaces between the words, or with underscores separating them.

Pro Tip: When you get a router from your provider, it comes with a default password. You should change it. Don’t worry, we’ll show you how, step by step!

How to Remember All Those Passwords

We live in a society where every account we have online requires a password. At times this can become overwhelming. If you’re having trouble remembering all the different passwords you need to access your accounts, there are a couple of things you can do.

One is to write them all down and keep them somewhere safe, not stored on your computer or cell phone. However, I wouldn’t recommend this method for a whole lot of reasons!

A better solution is to use a password management program such as SplashID, KeePass, or LastPass, that enable you to only have to remember one master password. Unless you are a genius cyborg who can remember J&%m_lA$w1K#bZ$t8, otherwise, I strongly suggest you to use a password manager to manage your multiple passwords.

Let’s Look at The List of The 25 Worst Passwords of 2013

Worst Passwords of 2013
25 Worst Passwords of 2013 – Source: SplashData

Aside from “123456” coming in at #1, and “password” ranking at #2, some other very poor password choices included “12345678” ranked at #3, “123456789” ranked at #6, and “password1”, which came in at #21 on the list of the top 25 worst passwords of 2013.

Another important tip to remember when making and using passwords is not to use the same exact password for all of your important accounts. At the very least, create a slight variation so that if ever your password for one account was discovered your other accounts would not be jeopardized as well.

[Read also: Biometric Technology Offers An Advantage Over Passwords]

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